The New York Times has up a video obit for Art Buchwald, complete with him announcing his own death in a segment that he filmed for that inevitable event. [CAUTION: Plays music as soon as the page loads.]
He also left a final column to be published after his death. You can read it here.
Buchwald was a very funny man...and very fair. I can't find the quote but he once said something like, "I can't afford to play favorites. When you have to fill as many columns as I do a year, you need to go after everyone." Indeed.
What you get as today's video link is a peek at another cheaply-produced animated show of the fifties. I was never particularly a fan of Colonel Bleep, a series of cartoons that Engineer Bill ran on Channel 9 here in L.A. when I was a kid. Other hosts in other cities also inflicted them on the young population.
There were 104 of these done in 1956 and 1957...reportedly the first made-for-TV cartoon series to be produced in color. It's probably not true, as industry legend has it, that they were made "in a garage in Miami" but they looked it...although I have to say that looking at them now, some of the graphics are surprisingly delightful. I remembered it looking much shoddier than the example below. I've seen worse looking shows produced by folks who probably had what, measured in constant dollars, would be five times the budget.
Can't say much for the storylines, though. Even when I was six or seven years old, I couldn't wrap my still-developing brain around the adventures of a frenetic little alien who hopped around, saving the galaxy with the help of his friends, a living-but-mute puppet and a numbskull caveman. At a time when we were periodically being scared at the prospect of nuclear annhilation in this country, some of the plots were a bit unsettling and the "all narration" style was a little distancing, as well.
They were done by a studio in Florida known as Soundac. The only thing I know about Soundac is that they primarily created commercial spots and that the operation came to an unglorious end around 1971. The company decided to move its offices to another location so they loaded the files, equipment and film library of their studio into a big van. Then, as the story is told, some stranger jumped behind the wheel, stole the van, and its contents — and therefore, Soundac — were never seen again. This is the tale that gets told when someone asks why many of the Colonel Bleep episodes no longer exist today...and I can't swear it's true. But it's so funny, you almost hope it's true.
Soundac also did a series of cartoons in the mid-sixties called The Mighty Mister Titan. I've never seen one and I'd be very surprised if you had, either.
You can buy an entire DVD of Colonel Bleep cartoons for eight bucks on this page. I'm betting you don't. In fact, I'd wager serious money that most of you don't watch the entire nine minutes of Bleep below — a four-minute intro and a five-minute adventure — even for free...
Richard Leung suggested I read this piece in The New Yorker because it might speak to some of the things that bothered me about the Borat movie. It does.
Sorry — shocked, even — to hear of the death of artist Leah Adezio at a much too early age. I really only knew her from occasional chats at conventions but she seemed like a nice, popular lady who was well-liked by her close friends. Some of those close friends have posted eloquent insights into her life, and you might want to start with Elayne Riggs and then go through some of the links she has up to what others are saying. Very sad.
Had an interesting experience last evening: A screening at the Writers Guild of the hit film, Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. It was followed by an interview with two of the movie's writers — Peter Baynham and Anthony Hines — and its star, Sacha Baron Cohen.
First thing that must be said: The audience loved it. People around me, including several good friends, were laughing themselves sick...and I must say that I admired the skill and the cleverness and the overall guts it took to make the movie. Cohen is a brilliant and courageous performer, no doubt about it...
...but I don't think I laughed once.
Well, maybe I'm overstating the case. I laughed a few times...but only a few and not with much vigor. Why? Hard to say. It wasn't because of the frequent lapses into low comedy. I usually love low comedy. What I don't usually love is the kind of Candid Camera humor where we're expected to laugh at the humiliation of people who are being ambushed and filmed for our alleged amusement. It always feels like a rigged game to me...like the situations that are arranged make it impossible for the victims not to look at least a little foolish. And if by some miracle they don't, that footage gets tossed. That alone, however, doesn't explain my general indifference to the movie. Matter of fact, I felt that parts of the movie weren't as spontaneous as the p.r. would have us believe, and that some of the people caught on camera had to have been playing more clueless than they appeared.
I guess I didn't like Borat the Character much. Many of those he encountered on his shlep across America were jerks but he was usually a bigger jerk. Matter of fact, the jerks he encountered were often only jerks because his jerkiness was provoking them into it. So I guess I thought something like, "This is supposed to be the Comedy of Reality, but the reality is phony because his actions are creating it." Or something like that. I really can't explain my reactions very well. If I come up with a better understanding of them, I'll post it here.
For now, I'll just say that I appreciated the skill of Cohen and the filmmakers, and I enjoyed (and laughed at) the panel discussion which followed, which may or may not turn up on a forthcoming DVD release. Still, I was an oasis of non-laughter in a theater of people who were howling, sometimes in spite of themselves...and I can't quite explain why. (For another report on the event, here's Marv Wolfman, who was sitting next to me, laughing and sometimes making that little sigh that suggests you're almost sorry you laughed at something you just laughed at.)
On the way in, audience members were subjected to metal detector searches. No one seemed concerned that we might have weapons. The fear was of cell phones with cameras or other recording devices. Seemed as if at least half of those trekking into the Writers Guild Theater had to step out of line, go back to their cars and leave their cell phones. I heard someone ask one of the guys wielding the wands why and he said the studio was worried about someone filming the movie and putting it on the Internet...which, of course, is not the reason. The movie's playing in hundreds of theaters across the country where you can go and not be searched on the way in. And though I don't venture near the wickeder parts of the World Wide Web, I'll bet that horse is long since outta the barn; that somewhere online, one can find plenty of copies of Borat that are better and clearer than what anyone could capture on a cell phone camera.
No, more likely, this is the legacy of the Michael Richards incident, or at least of the rise of YouTube. The studio wanted to control what would get out, not of the movie but of the live panel discussion after...and I almost don't blame them. Just need to make a note to self to start leaving the cell phone in my car when I go to anything that might get interesting. Or to act like Borat would have acted, had those men with the wands waved them across his privates.
For those of you interested in this matter — and I'm almost embarrassed that I still am — Timothy Noah has a copy of the agreement O.J. Simpson signed to write that book that didn't come out. (I say "almost" embarrassed because as readers of Groo the Wanderer know, it takes a lot to embarrass me.)
We all get these. Perhaps you got this one. It arrived in my e-mailbox yesterday and I thought it was the most shameless, inept attempt I've seen yet to get me to send vital personal info to a stranger so they can clean out my checking account and/or engage in a little Identity Theft. I keep reading that people fall for these and it always amazes me. The spelling and grammar are unchanged.
My Dear,
We wish to inform you that your fund which you have been processing for some period of years is coming through a diplomatic means to your door steps in cash. We are a diplomatic attached to OCC (Oversees Credit Commission).
We advice you to forward to this department your home address where you want the consignment to be deliver and your telephone number, and also your International Passport or Driver's License for Identification.
As soon as we receive this information required the consignment briefcase will forwarded to you immediately and the date of our officer arriving will be also giving to you.
We wait your reply.
Dr. Fred Williams.
Diploma Director
I especially like the fact that Dr. Williams has been processing this matter for years regarding what is apparently a large sum of money that I am owed. But he doesn't seem to know my name.
January 19, 2007
